WND EXCLUSIVE

'Blatant mischaracterization of a man of God'

Ray Comfort: Hollywood's 'Noah' undermines authority of Bible

A Christian evangelist who knows a little bit about filmmaking – Ray Comfort’s “180” and “Evolution vs. God” have been wildly popular – says Hollywood’s version of “Noah” is “sinister” and worse.

“There’s something more sinister about the production of this movie. It’s more than just a grown man with a childish imagination playing with an expensive toy. It is the blatant mischaracterization of a man of God in an attempt to undermine the authority of the Word of God,” Comfort said.

“If Hollywood’s ‘Noah’ is a financial success, I suspect that a sequel will be a blasphemous mischaracterization of Jesus and His work on the cross,” he said.

“Noah,” starring Russell Crowe, opens this weekend.

Comfort, whose “Noah and the Last Days,” is on YouTube and DVD, said he saw the Hollywood version, a $130 million epic by Paramount, because a popular television program had invited him to share his thoughts.

“Noah’s producer, Darren Aronofsky, once said, ‘All of my charity work has always been about the environment,’ so I can understand why he thought that the biblical narrative is about saving innocent animals,” Comfort said.

“But what was he thinking when he had Noah build the ark with the help of a rock group? These embarrassingly absurd rock people stomp around almost every scene of the first half of the movie. From a production viewpoint, I expected better and more sensible motion graphics for such a big budget movie,” he said.

Comfort said that from a biblical viewpoint, the Noah character in the movie “is about as far away from the Noah of the Bible as he could get.”

“Perhaps the best way to describe him and what he does in the movie would be to liken it to Hollywood doing a movie about Napoleon, and portraying him as a tall Japanese-speaking crocodile hunter, who was into sky-diving and Russian roulette,” he said.

And author Larry Stone, who has released “Noah: The Real Story,” cited a description from a blog called the Beginning and End that the Hollywood version is “not a Christian film.”

Comfort said when and if Hollywood makes a movie about a biblical figure that stays faithful to the Scriptures, he’ll be happy to encourage people to watch.

“In the meanwhile, I am encouraged that over 100,000 people freely saw our version of Noah within the first two days of its release. May those who have a Noah craving get their fix at NoahTheMovie.com.

Comfort’s movie, “Noah and the Last Days,” goes beyond retelling the tale of the famous ark builder to show how the ancient story applies to both today and the near future, which Comfort says is being revealed through biblical prophecies, indicating the return of Jesus Christ is coming soon.

The “Noah and the Last Days” website explains that in the time of Noah, people were going about their daily lives, not mindful of the impending destruction that was coming in the flood that would wipe out nearly all life on earth.

“Like them, are we ignoring warnings of God’s coming judgment?” the website asks. “Don’t be caught unaware. Time may be very short. Will you be ready?”

On “The Comfort Zone,” Comfort explained, “Our vision [for the Noah film] has been, since I talked about prophecy on my Facebook page, I realized how many people love prophecy, Christians and non-Christians. … Yet man cannot predict the future.

“Only God knows the future, and that fascinates all of us,” he continued. “So we’re very excited to bring [“Noah and the Last Days”] out. We’ve never done anything on prophecy ever before. We’ve stayed away from it because we’re not big prophecy buffs and because there’s so many different interpretations, but one thing every Bible scholar agrees on, that Jesus Christ is coming again and it’s getting close.”

Watch a trailer for “Noah and the Last Days”:

Stone noted that the story of Noah and the ark has been filmed many times. Usually the biblical story is a framework on which the writer and director can hang their own story with their own viewpoint, which usually has little to do with the Bible’s Noah. One of the first talkies – “Noah’s Ark” – did just that in 1928. The writer mixed up Noah with Moses, Samson and even the Sermon on the Mount.

Stone insists there’s a greater lesson behind the biblical account of Noah that Aronofsky’s version of the tale misses completely.

“When Noah was warned of disaster, God told him how to survive the Great Flood,” Stone writes in “Noah: The Real Story.”

What can we do now to survive the end of the world that both futurists and the Bible say is coming?

“Noah’s secret on how to survive the end of the world is to watch, be ready, and choose now which side you are on … who you will believe and serve,” Stone writes.

He quotes Christian author C.S. Lewis, who wrote: “God will invade. … When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right, but … this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature.

“It will be too late then to choose your side … It will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side.”